Is Genshin Impact Racist? Why Representation Matters (Sumeru 3.0)

My thoughts on the current discourse surrounding Sumeru 3.0 and the lack of accurate representation of the cultures and people it is derived from.

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#GenshinImpact #Genshin #AsianGuyStream

[AsianGuyStream]

Please feel free to share your thoughts / discussions in the comments, but I ask people keep things civil!

[ying_verse]

WELL SAID. I've been reading a lot of threads from various angles on the representation issues with sumeru and theories on the specific sources of inspiration and I appreciate your nuanced take on this (and particularly the call-out on community toxicity without meaningful action). really disappointed in HYV's cultural ignorance so far; I really just want people to feel the same elation of representation I felt when I first saw yunjin's opera cutscene

[senitaiwo]

I don't think they are racist I just think it wouldn't hurt to add representation, it doesn't necessarily mean only black characters, speaking as a black person myself. I think genshin is aware of their player base and the diversity it has. And with Sumeru I think appreciating a culture without representing their physical qualities isn't really that fair to be honest

[luckybug]

The only characters with darker skin are Kaeya and Xinyan. Even Chinese people aren’t all as pale as they make them. I have a darker skin tone because I am Chinese. I wish theyd put more darker skin tones in Genshin.

[sqlxzc]

As an Arab person I think that the characters' designs are so cool but it's kinda disappointing that there's just one girl with black/ brown skin (Dehya) and then Cyno with brown skin. I was also thinking about the NPC in the game, they're all white, (that's what I saw in the leaks) I don't mean that's something bad but in Arabic countries not all the ppl in the street are white :').
I think it would nice if they added some NPC with hijab or something covering their head, I mean the girls bc it would really look good (I'm talking as an Egyptian person and that's what I see a lot in the street).

I also think that Nilou could have a face veil but that's a personal preference :p

For me Genshin is a comfort game but it sucks that a region that it's supposed to look like an Arabic one it's full of white characters, again I don't hate that, the designs are beautiful and I love the characters but yeah

[mohammadhamadeh]

I am an arab person and the moment the leaks began I tried my best to research as much as possible the history and cultures that hoyoverse were trying to represent from the names and the clothing to the story in some way, and although the common concept is lying that they are relying on stereotypes of arabs and appeal to the chinese market by differing skin tones I have a rather lengthy explanation t owhat I found in general.

Firstly however I would like to discuss that dori's design is going towards the stereotypical Alaadin theme but it does not mock any religious figures or demons (as people have speculated it would be jin from Islamic cultures) dori just has a genie and the concept of a genie has been used by arabs alike to write and share stories so to be mad at it as an arab although valid of a reason it is not misrepresentation of religion or mocking, her skin tone however is something I didn't find a reason as to why it was on the brighter side.

Moving on to other characters that have been leaked such as tighnari and nilou and al Haitham . Whilst the common idea that they are arab, they are in fact Persian and persians are known for their paler skin tone as compared to the rest of the middle east. Due to the common generalization that persian and arab people are one from the islamic history books is sadly inaccurate, it discredits them as the important islamic persian pioneers in their fields to being called arab which is not an insult but rather a generalization. Tighnari is an interesting situation because his name from what I could research is derived from arabic and meaning "fox" ehich explains his ears and tail but his skin colour could be attributed to him mostly living in the rainforest so even if he may be arab (which I am not sure about) his skin tone is rather explained due to his biome residence and this reflects upon the real world for places in the middle east such as Lebanon and Palestine have more of a paler majority in skin tones as opposed to the gulf countries.

Nilou is inspired by the Persian dancing cultures which rely heavily on hand movements and the horns that she wears are of symbolysm as well and her name is derived from the Persian word Niloufar which translates to lotus.

Al Haitham is a direct reference to the persian mathematician and physicist Hasan Ibn al-Haytham which although debated is mostly known as a persian origin pioneer. Which again in reference to the location could explain his skin tone.

For other characters I am still awaiting for more information but the general conclusion that I have relied on mostly is that there is some misrepresentation but I am awaiting more characters to see if it couls still manage to be an acceptable respesentation due to the middle east consisting of many cultures and skin tones and going for all the characters to be black/ darker skin toned would also be a bad generalization/ misrepresentation.

If anyone has any information to provide it would be highly appreciated and thank you if you read this any constructive critisism would be appreciated. (Also I apologize for any gramatical/spelling errors in my explanations)

[kthgojo]

To me the weirdest thing about this whole situation is how defensive and annoyed people get because others criticize the limited skin color palette and act like they’re “involving politics” when even from a design standpoint it’s arguably uninspired to have so many characters almost the same 3 shades for no particular reason.

People complained for literal months when Rosaria’s boobs got nerfed, wether it was in comments, on twt or in streams, and the game gets doomposted over every little problem in the meta or reward system but whenever people criticize hyv for how they implement cultures they’re called overdramatic and sensitive.

[farahmau]

For me as a tan-skinned asian, I honestly didn't have that much hope for Hoyoverse to represent skin color that much. Even here in SEA, white skin is still more preferred and considered more appealing. I didn't expect much from a game that needs to make a sellable 'appealing' character, even though their decision does still hurt.

The thing is, it's just… skin color. It's not clothes article that needs complicated rendering (though this comes from someone that have zero idea about animation or 3d modelling). But I am pretty sure that making tan, brown, dark-skinned characters doesn't require Hyv that MUCH extra effort

[Shiiwata]

Honestly, rather than representation, I would like to see more variety in the game. Many characters are slowly starting to look the same. We need more body types, especially for the males because they only have two options (teen or adult). I also wish they got someone from Honkai to design the females because I'm not the biggest fan of the recent outfits, however I can understand why some people take issues with the game's lack of representation as well. We barely have any dark skinned characters and the ones we have are 4 stars, one of them has only recently started to get some love in events and the other one is a starter character, but I don't think the way certain Twitter folks are dealing with this issue is doing them any favors - screaming at people and calling them names is not going to make anyone listen to you or try to understand where you are coming from, but this always has been an issue for Twitter.

[BleachFactory]

I don’t think having pale skinned characters for Sumeru is bad since there are a lot of pale middle eastern people. However, hyv should make an effort to add tan/brown characters to this region which has just as many brown people as well.

It kinda sucks to see people call you crazy for wanting to see your skin tone and culture represented in a positive way. Genshin is inspired by real life regions and cultures, proper outfits and more skin tone ranges is the least hyv can do.

[Kimi]

Glad to see that you discussed this issue in a mature manner. As someone of color and from The Bahamas, I tend to see misrepresentation a lot from my country. It's annoying to see other entities do a form of media in or based on my country and have the characters/actors have a Jamaican accent. Or have others assume that you are Jamaican when you tell them where you're from. This tends to happen to other countries in the Caribbean as well. I've see misrepresentation a lot and sadly used to it enough to expect it from certain entities.

Now with Genshin, I agree, I think that they are just really ignorant. I do believe that if you are going to represent a country then you better put the work in to research and acknowledge the people of that culture. Now will I stop playing Genshin? No but I don't think I will pull on any of the characters. As you say companies like this will only take notice when the money drops. Money or lack there of will always get their attention. As someone of color, I always knew that Genshin that is run by a Chinese company, will hardly give me the representation that I want. However I do have a small hope that this situation will somehow open their eyes a little but that will depend on how the banners will do when the characters come out. If the banners do well then this will go over their heads but if there's enough of a dip then it might catch their eye.

[shirleyyee]

Even Liyue doesn't accurately represent China. I see so many my Chinese fellows complaining the architecture is not the actual Chinese style, and said they're tired of the characters' western style tights (e.g Shenhe, Yelan, Ganyu). Even some of them said some Liyue female characters such as Xiangling are the kind of Chinese stereotype characters in Japanese anime. For Yunjin, her clothes is not Chinese at all and it's typical western style Lolita dress, and I'm not a fan of her design.
Upon the characters release of Sumeru, there're many people that are unhappy about the character design and skin tone. I'm not part of the said community so I don't think I have a say about it.
However, have you ever considered that Mihoyo may never actually want to "represent" any culture or even try to avoid the "accurate" representation? They put Enkanomiya, which is based on Greek-inspired culture, to Inazuma. For Liyue, the Azhdaha has a Persian name was inspired by a mysterious creature from Middle East. The Fatui Harbingers are inspired by Italian opera but they're at Snezhnaya. A Japanese musician that parcipated to the Inazuma music production once said the composer Yu-Peng made the music sounds like Japanese, but it's not real Japanse music at all. Given the fact that he perceived the music is not authentic, he still think it is amazing.
From my POV, I think what they are doing is more like drawing inspiration from the world, and kind of mix & spin different culture into their fantasy. The reason why they wanted to create seven regions is because they intended to set distinctive tone & theme for each of them. For me, Genshin is an inspiration, not representation. Many people start to know more about and get interested in Japanese/Chinese/Germany or other cultures not because they represent them correctly. It's more like they way they integrated the traditional culture into a fantasy made it more intriguing and well-known. More people start to learn and delve into where the inpiration was drawn from and know more about its origin. Just like they way they promoted Italian commedia dell'arte and Chinese Peking Opera through the game.
For sure, as a big game company that hired many well-educated talents and cultural researchers, they can definitely do better when it comes to other regions culture, I hope they can improve their knowledge, but still I won't keep my hopes too high. It's still too early to draw a conclusion from a region that is not even released yet. Why not spare them a chance and wait until the Sumeru chapter is finished?

[karrapell]

As a middle eastern person, i really dont think it would hurt to add more skin tones in the game. %90 of the characters are pale white and genshin takes inspiration from a variety of cultures. Since there werent many regions that took inspiration from real life ethnicities with dark skin tones i was ok with with this, until sumeru leaks came. It kind of feels like they went out of their way to change the skin tone but tried representing everything else about the culture perfectly

[SevyPlays]

I appreciate this conversation from you, especially with your perspective from an Asian in a Western country!! even the throwback to the anniversary "boycott" KEKL I really hope to be pleasantly surprised when Genshin explores Sumeru's lore or character arcs, but unfortunately my expectations are pretty low at this point. still really hoping that more players are given the representation they're wishing for.

[bellasparklez]

Its refreshing hearing a civil non toxic opinion on the issue. Being on genshin-twitter is like standing in hot lava right now. Representation matters, always! But the way people on twt handle this is just... child level 😣

[bringoutthet]

The main thing is. It's not about there being pale characters. It's about why there can't be brown characters. Because to take a culture where the most stereotypical image would be a brown to olive skinned person it feel deliberate to not or barely include them.


And then the question is "Why are they not included?" the answer? Sadly probably just colorism

[LexxLo]

i have noticed the lack of any skin color diversity in genshin for a while now, and i had been hoping that in general they would add more black and brown skin tones. with sumeru i had really hoped more diversity would be a given considering the location, and i am sad that thus far we havent gotten that. i hope that as the game continues to develop we will have much more skin color diversity than we do at the current moment, because even in a fantasy world real world people and their skin color deserves to be represented.

[sermajore]

Sumeru - (Mount Meru) one of sacred five peaked mountain of Hindu, Jain and Buddhist cosmology .
Honestly, they do not have to make ALL characters dark /brown skinned.Having chars with light as well as dark skin tones would be good as it would accurate. But as of now the ratio of brown to light skinned char is just disappointing. Representation does matter.

[Eletrocinese]

its great that a big game like gi is trying to portray different cultures in its worldbuilding, but whats the point if they dont actually put the effort to do it correctly? they did well so far despite a few bumps here and there, and like you said its because hoyo understand aspects of chinese and japanese culture the best, but if they arent well acquainted with other cultures then they should reach out to people who actually have a firm grasp of how said cultures work, to make sure their content is accurate to reality (after all the game has been largely praised so far for how well they portray chinese
hoyo is a huge company, theres no need to babyfy them by saying "they dont know any better"

[tuna]

I think that if Mihoyo is going to use inspiration from real countries, they should try to at least accurately represent the people and not go toward a stereotyped path. While yes, there are people from the SWANA region that have paler skin, there are also a lot of people with darker skin in that region. Seeing as Mihoyo took the time to properly represent cultures before, I don’t see why now they are lacking in comparison. Characters like Yunjin and her association with traditional Chinese opera were beautifully expressed, but now it seems like Mihoyo isn’t putting effort into this new batch of characters and a whole new region.

I understand why people are upset and they have every right to be. To take culture from real places and not even bother to make sure it isn’t being displayed in an offensive way is outrageous. I really hope Hoyoverse will take this feedback and learn from it, if they have changed some characters in the past, then I don’t see why it should be a problem now.